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00:00Hello and welcome to Tete-Ã -Tete, France 24's flagship interview show.
00:07Our guest today is Haiti's foreign minister, Dominique Dupuy.
00:10Thank you very much for being with us.
00:12Thank you very much for having me today.
00:14I'm happy to be here.
00:15On October the 3rd, a terrible massacre took place in the city of Ponsondez.
00:21At least 117 civilians were killed by a gang apparently called the Grand Griff.
00:27The survivors have criticized the authorities for not being responsive enough.
00:31They say the gang had posted on social media what they would do and it still happened.
00:37Why is that?
00:38This massacre on October 3rd is indeed a very tragic moment.
00:44And I can tell you that it has shaken the entire Haitian people wherever they may be.
00:51What we know is that immediately following the news of this incident and this very tragic
00:58incident, the government moved about 100 armored vehicles from the metropolitan area to Ponsondez.
01:07About 80 specialized troops were moved also by helicopter.
01:11The government has newly acquired through lease helicopters that we didn't have before
01:17in order to move specialized troops to be able to address the current situation in Ponsondez.
01:22Immediate action was taken to reinforce the hospital's capacity because beyond, unfortunately,
01:27the dead, we also have many wounded that needed to be tended to and that didn't have the proper
01:33capacity in the neighboring hospitals.
01:35The prime minister himself flew to the area where he was able to tend to the sick and
01:41the wounded in the hospital that were being tended to.
01:44So what we are seeing today is a growing tendency for gangs to expand beyond the metropolitan area.
01:53We of course knew this could have been expected as we push and we pressure them in the metropolitan
01:58area if we do not have the capacity to consolidate the northern and southern axis.
02:03They push north, they push south in order to provoke reactions from the armed forces
02:08and the police forces that we have.
02:10What we need is better support, more troops, more equipment, more air support, more maritime
02:14support, more armored vehicles in order to have an overwhelming capacity, overwhelming
02:19force to respond to this very potent threat.
02:23But isn't this a message from the gangs to the government as an international force is
02:29arriving to deal with them?
02:32Aren't they sending the message, we're the strong guys, the government is just running after us?
02:38Our message is that we need to move faster, we need to move better and the international
02:42community needs to understand that the support we need needs to come now.
02:46We cannot allow for any further massacres to happen and civilians to be taken hostage
02:51any longer by these gangs.
02:53We are a people of 12 million being held hostage by about 2,000 bandits.
02:59There's nothing unsolvable if we have the proper equipment, if we have the proper funding.
03:04We have the determination to not only answer but to at least isolate these situations.
03:11We cannot do it right now and this is a message we're trying to get across everywhere through
03:15my voice, through the CPT's voice, through the Prime Minister's voice, everywhere we
03:19go articulating the fact that there needs to be urgent and better accompaniment of Haiti
03:25in order to face this very, very dire situation where unfortunately children, women, civilians
03:31are the first ones to pay the very high price.
03:34Some gang leaders, I think of Jimmy Chérisier, known as BBQ, have said we're ready to discuss
03:40with the government.
03:41If we get a share of the pie, that's fine.
03:44Why not?
03:45Why not, if the situation is so dire, negotiate with the gangs?
03:49The reality, Mr. Perlman, is that our history is shaped by impunity.
03:53What we are seeing today is people that are emboldened by the idea that there are no consequences
03:58to their acts.
03:59It's very difficult for us to think of the people that were massacred on the night of
04:03October 3rd and tell their families that if someone from Grand Griffe just wants to discuss
04:08with us today, they can just have an office next door and we can sit down and they can
04:11resume their lives as if nothing happened.
04:14This would be a very dangerous precedent to set as we try to cope with a growing disease
04:20of gang presence.
04:22We also have to talk about the need to reinforce our justice system and to make sure that for
04:27generations and generations to come, people know that they will be held accountable for
04:31their actions and that justice will prevail in a climate where what we've seen basically
04:36is the collapse of this justice system that we are direly trying to reinforce.
04:41Right.
04:42So, the magic bullet, quote unquote, is this international force to support the Haitian police.
04:49The theory was that there would be 2,500, even up to 2,900 men.
04:56But that's not what you're witnessing on the ground, is it?
04:59Can you tell us what the situation is?
05:01There is no magic bullet.
05:03What we have is a government that is determined to let a transition that can end by February
05:097th, 2026, when we will be able to pass on the leadership to a democratically elected
05:15government.
05:16In order to do so, we know now what we didn't know earlier.
05:20No one had engaged with the gangs before.
05:23This current government, through the prime minister, is the first to actively lead an
05:27attack against the gangs in one of the 14 occupied neighborhoods in the metropolitan
05:32area.
05:33What we've learned from this attack, we didn't know before.
05:36Every assessment that was made on the security situation was grossly underestimated.
05:41Every assessment that we thought of what it took in terms of funding, in terms of equipment,
05:45in terms of troops, was grossly underestimated.
05:48What we saw by facing these gangs for weeks on and weeks out is that they're extremely
05:54agile.
05:55They're extremely determined.
05:56They're extremely equipped.
05:57And they will not back down.
05:59We will not back down either.
06:01What we need now is more than ever a strong, uninterrupted support for the efforts that
06:07are courageously being led by the police forces, by the army that has been reinstituted, and
06:12by the 400 Kenyans and the 20 Jamaican and Belizean that have joined forces with us.
06:17We cannot win this without air support.
06:19We cannot win this by maritime support.
06:22We cannot win this if we are running short of bullets, running short of equipment every
06:27time we attack the gangs.
06:28And this is what we're seeing.
06:30There is no silver bullet, but there is a path forward.
06:32This is solvable.
06:34But how many men are being deployed for this international mission?
06:37I said the theory was up to 2,900.
06:40How many will effectively be deployed?
06:42The assessment was for 2,500 for the MSS.
06:46What we know today is we'll have 1,000 by November.
06:50This is grossly insufficient.
06:52And this is why we're requesting that this mission be transitioned to a standard peacekeeping
06:57operation, peacekeeping mission.
06:59In order for us to ensure that we do not run short of equipment, men, funding, and most
07:05importantly, of the necessary mechanisms that we will need in order to ensure viable, credible
07:12elections by November 2025.
07:14But this proposal to have this as a UN peacekeeping forces was rejected by the UN Security Council,
07:20especially by Russia and China.
07:23Why would this happen?
07:24Because if this doesn't happen, the promises of money and men are not going to happen.
07:30Two reasons.
07:31What we know today is that we have the Haitian government's entire commitment for this transition.
07:36And we're doing the legwork.
07:38We're doing, we're entering the meeting rooms and we're lobbying and doing the work that
07:42we need to do to defend our own position based on our own assessment.
07:47The second information that we have is that when we were lobbying for this last year through
07:52third parties, allies and friends, we did not have any assessment on what it took to
07:58win this on the ground.
07:59We now know this.
08:00We're able to show the statistics of what this battle looks like.
08:05And with this information, we're convinced that we can have a very strong case for this
08:10resolution to be adopted.
08:12How many men do you need from the international forces?
08:15What we know is about 20 years ago, when the situation was a lot less difficult on the
08:20humanitarian scale, on the security scale, we had about 14,000 men.
08:25And today, we cannot be expected to face a much more difficult, a much more complex situation
08:30with a lot more equipment facing us through the gangs.
08:33So you would need, what, 20,000 troops?
08:35This would be an assessment that we would make jointly with our partners.
08:37But it's not a wild guess.
08:39Over 14,000.
08:40Over 14,000.
08:41Yes.
08:42I want to get quickly to the tense relationship with your neighbor, the Dominican Republic.
08:47Their president had recently said that he wants to improve relations that have been
08:51since he decided to close the borders last year.
08:55However, on October 2nd, his government announces that they would throw out 10,000 Haitians
09:02per week, and they've started enforcing this.
09:05What is your reaction to this decision?
09:07It is their sovereign right to decide how they lead their migratory policy.
09:12What we denounce is the way every single Haitian is being denied their basic human
09:18rights through this process.
09:20We see children being separated from their breastfeeding mothers.
09:23We see young girls being dropped on the border unaccompanied.
09:26We see people being put in cages on the sole basis that they are too dark, that they look
09:31Haitian without any verification of their paperwork.
09:34And this is what we're denouncing.
09:35Is this racism?
09:36I believe so.
09:37I believe this is racist.
09:39And I believe that this is intentional.
09:42And I believe that it will further destabilize Haiti.
09:45And I believe that we need to at least request that there be some respect of some basic rules
09:52in this process, that 10,000 Haitians be deported every week is their right, but that they be
09:59deported in the established drop-off zones and the established schedules with the proper
10:04registries for us to make sure that we're accounted for every single one and that we
10:08can care to the best of our abilities with our partners for them as they enter the territory.
10:12Some of them have never been in Haiti, and it's going to be an extremely complicated
10:17process that we will step up for in order to make sure that we can offer them some degree
10:23of dignity in this very unfortunate decision.
10:26Last question.
10:27Donald Trump recently claimed that Haitians in the city of Springfield, Ohio, were eating
10:32cats and dogs.
10:33He also promised to throw out the Haitians who entered through a humanitarian program
10:38in the U.S.
10:39How concerned are you if he's reelected for the Haitian community in the U.S.?
10:44First of all, I can't help but have a special thought for all the people in the world who
10:48actually do eat cats and dogs, and there shouldn't be a reason to ostracize anyone.
10:52But we as Haitians don't.
10:54And it's unfortunate that Haitians again, and we've seen this so many times throughout
10:58history, are being used as scapegoats for electoral purposes.
11:03I'll leave it at that.
11:04I don't think there's any actual intent, and I hope that the American people are smart
11:09enough to read through the fact that this is just campaign rhetoric.
11:15However, the impact of this rhetoric is very real.
11:19The threats on Haitians, the feeling of insecurity, the feeling of dehumanization is real, and
11:26this is why we decided to stand up and speak out against these declarations, because they
11:31set a very dangerous precedent for other people, other places, as you know, looking
11:37to our neighbors to feel emboldened to lead not only such discourse, but lead such policies
11:44towards Haitians.
11:45Dominique Dupuy, I want to thank you very much for appearing here on France 24, and
11:50thank you for watching this interview.